SDLP: Durkan calls for electricity price reductions

Published:11:44Monday 12 January 2015

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SDLP Foyle MP Mark Durkan has said people in Derry and throughout the North are “puzzled and aggrieved” when reductions in wholesale oil prices don’t translate into a similar price drop for electricity consumers.

Mr Durkan said: “Electricity price increases in the past have been explained by energy companies on the basis of wholesale oil price rises.

“People are therefore puzzled and aggrieved when reductions in wholesale oil prices don’t translate into a similar price drop for electricity consumers.

“The fact that energy companies emphasise the significance of other cost factors keeping our electricity prices high raises the question of what more is being done to knock-down and lock-down those other costs.

“Northern Ireland’s Utility Regulator is meant to look at wholesale prices. Indeed, I welcome the recommendation from Labour leader Ed Miliband (yesterday) that the energy regulator across the water – Ofgem – should be given new powers to force firms to cut electricity and gas bills to reflect falls in wholesale energy prices.”